I have been asked to address the issue of the topic presented at the launch of the Centre for Dialogue and Cooperation among Civilizations: Clash of Civilizations: Real or Imagined? I have come to the conclusion that the clash is both real as well as imagined, simply because “facts” or reality are often inseparable from perceptions “imagined”. The more so because much of the debate has been exacerbated and distorted through media.
Western media have used such variants of expressions ranging from “Islamic fundamentalism”, “Islamic terrorism”, “Islamic Jihadists”, and even “Islamic Fascists”. Toxic television, rabble ras well as trash tabloids are prone to use these caricatures. They feed on one another in ways “fact” becomes fiction, and fiction “ ignites” facts.
The Muslim world as a whole has suffered from this massive media manipulation. It has given rise to many different set of perceptions about “clashes within civilizations,” including among Muslims in the Middle East, Asia and Southeast Asia. You can also say that it is a clash of ideas about civilizations across all continents.
The “Clash of Civilizations” was first publicly raised in 1993 in an article written in Foreign Affairs magazine by Professor Samuel Huntington , and it is useful to remind ourselves of the context of when and why the question of clash of civilizations was brought up at the time.
First, it appeared in the wake of the “victory” of liberal capitalism over communism symbolized by the unification of two Germanies in October and the disintegration of the Soviet Union in December. Earlier, the January 1991 Gulf War over Kuwait added the sense of western triumphalism. American hegemonism was at its peak.
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Democracy is fine for those whose basic human needs (food, shelter, clothing, access to electricity, clean water, education) have been met. But for a large number of Indonesian (39 million living on less than 2 dollars per day; 10 million openly unemployed; 15 million families having to receive direct cash transfers) democracy has little personal meaning. The biggest challenge for President Yudhoyono is to attack mass poverty, overcome inequities in development and combat corruption. Radical groups, be they be religious or secular based, pose a threat to Indonesia’s democracy.
But hope remains that within the next 3 years the threat of radical and violent extremism can be mitigated and that as democracy is underpinned by broad based social-economic development, Indonesia’s democracy can be salvaged and made sustainable. The following new analysis from a recent Reuters report sheds light on the socal-economic dimensions of Indonesia's democracy.
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Stanley Weiss is reknowed business consultant who travels widely in Asia. He is a proponent of Indonesian democracy and is fond of Bali. His message in this article is that a tolerant and pluralistic Indonesia is possible so long as political and economic empowerment reaches to the majority of the Muslim poor.
Click the Continue Reading button or you can also read the full article at the International Herald Tribune
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The Indonesian Parliament recently passed two landmark legislation . On July 11, the Aceh Governance Act was passed, after over 5 months of debate following the agreement between the Indonesian government and the Free Aceh Movement (Gerakan Aceh Merdeka, GAM) reached at Helsinki in August 2005. The agreement was brokered by the European Union and representatives from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). All credit to Interior Minister Muhammad Maaruf and his staff who tirelessly defended that the any provisions of the MOU with GAM must pass the litmus test of Indonesian sovereignty as provided in the Indonesian Constitution of 1945.
GAM had insisted, for example, that the Indonesian Defense Force (TNI), should exclusively deal with “external defense” and that only the Indonesian Police be assigned to internal security duties. This demand runs counter to article 30 of the Indonesian constitution which stipulates that all Indonesian citizens are obliged to participate in the “total defense and security” of the nation. Hence, the soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines of the TNI (and even civilians) have an important role to play in supporting police in internal security affairs.
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It's a measure of our times of political transition that the debate about Pancasila as state identity (dasar negara) continues even after President Yudhoyono's reaffirmation of the precepts as the "fundamental basis of our national life" on June 1, 2006, at the 61st anniversary of the birth of Pancasila speech proclaimed by the late President Soekarno on June 1, 1945, a few months before Indonesia's declaration of independence on August 17, 1945. President Yudhoyono emphasized the need to fulfill the basic consensus since 1945: Pancasila, the 1945 Constitution, The Unitary State of Indonesia, Diversity in Unity.
Some Islamist groups had alarmed minority and non-Islamic communities with their fervent call for a stricter adherence to a more Islamic precept of social, economic and political life by pushing for an all-encompassing official restriction on "amoral and lewd" behavior, giving rise to fears that other communities will have to be subjected to legal norms contravening their respective personal and public code of conduct. Several regional governments have issued edicts applying shariah law for public behavior. The Ministry of Home Affairs is reviewing some of these edicts, which may directly contravene basic provisions of the Indonesian Constitution of 1945.
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